back in the studio, part 2

tim peck at the helm

sean farias on bass

miki matsuki on drums

On June 10th, Sean, Miki, and I came together to begin an audacious project: record basic tracks and overdubs on 10 new compositions, over the course of 3 short days in the studio. We were all set up by 1pm, and then tracking began. Tuesday’s session had the additional pressure of being a short day with the full trio, necessitating a 5pm stop time. My plan was to work on overdubs in the evening. Of course, this also meant that we would be tackling the project’s most challenging music on the first day. Though this made for a long first day, I was confident in my playing throughout, and the band sounded great!

After a very long day of tracking, I was ready to turn in for the evening. I decided to not listen to anything that first day. I figured that my exhaustion would only cloud my judgement. In part 1, I talked about the benefits of recording at a destination studio. One of the chief ones is pictured below!

keyboard accommodations

After a solid night’s sleep and a hearty breakfast, we were ready to hit the studio again in the morning. Despite our limited time on Tuesday, we were able to accomplish all the tracking I had hoped. We started Wednesday morning right on schedule. The trio was energized by the positive vibes so far, and we flew through the remaining five songs! We were playing well together and being highly responsive. We were even able to work through several technical difficulties in both the keyboard and bass set-ups efficiently. By 2pm, we were ready for a lunch break. Over our grinders from the local pizza shop, we listened to the recordings so far.

tim tracking

My perception of the sessions was pretty accurate. I was so pleased with how it was all coming out! While listening back, I noticed a few parts that we had missed, and a few that could be better. With just a couple more hours of work, we had all the basic tracks done! I recorded a few overdubs before dinner, and the project was reasonably “in the can.” In celebration, we enjoyed the rest of our Mexican food and a bottle of Scotch that Miki picked up earlier that day. Robert joined us for dinner, and we had an after-dinner hang to listen through the record. This was the first time we listened through all the tracks together!

editing on RADAR

Though Thursday was budgeted for more tracking, we didn’t need to use that time. Sean and Miki both hit the road by 10am. It was a job well done, and I am incredibly thankful to their contributions on this record. Mark and I spent another several hours doing some edits, and then bouncing the entire project down to WAV files, so that I can continue editing, and then mixing, over the summer.